Biography

Erich Heckel was one of the founding members of the Expressionist artists' group "Die Brücke". After Heckel initially began studying architecture in Dresden, he soon turned to art and trained as a self-taught graphic artist and painter. In 1905, together with fellow architecture students such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, he founded the artists' group "Die Brücke", which was also joined by Max Pechstein and Otto Müller. During longer stays at the North Sea with his artist friends between 1907 and 1910, trips to Italy and summer holidays at the Moritzburg ponds near Dresden, he worked intensively on graphics and paintings on the theme of the nude in free movement, among others. The typical group style of Expressionism of the "Brücke" developed. After a close studio partnership with Kirchner in Dresden, he moved to Berlin in 1911, where he met and became friends with other Expressionist artists such as Lionel Feininger, August Macke and Franz Marc. After the dissolution of "Der Brücke" in 1913, Heckel continued to concentrate on his art and exhibitions and was able to continue this artistic activity during the First World War. Despite signing the "Aufruf der Kulturschaffenden" in 1934, which affirmed his "allegiance to the Führer", Heckel was banned from exhibiting in 1937 and works by him were confiscated during the "Degenerate Art" campaign, some destroyed. In 1944 he moved to Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance and spent the years until the end of his life there. From 1949 to 1955 he took on a teaching position at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, but he turned down a teaching position at the Academy in Berlin. Heckel participated in documenta 1 in 1955.

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Objects by Erich Heckel